(This story has been updated with new information.)
Jurors have recommended four death sentences each for Jerone Hunter and Troy Victorino in the Deltona mass killing known as the Xbox murders.
Victorino, 48, and Hunter, 38, were sentenced to death in 2006 for the 2004 mass murder at a home on Telford Lane in Deltona where the victims beaten to death with baseball bats.
While their convictions stood, their death sentences were later struck down. Two others who participated in the killings, Michael Salas and Robert Cannon, were sentenced to life in prison.
Killed in the massacre were Erin Belanger, 22; Michelle Nathan, 19; Roberto “Tito” Gonzalez, 28; Jonathan Gleason, 17; Francisco “Flaco” Ayo-Roman, 30; and Anthony Vega, 34. A dog was also killed.
State Attorney R.J. Larizza spoke to the media after the verdict and thanked the jury for its work in a difficult case that involved gruesome imagery from the bloody crime scene. Larizza also praised the work of prosecutors Heatha Trigones and Andrew Urbanak.
“When you think about the sheer brutality of their crime and and the number of individuals who were murdered and how they were murdered, I mean try to imagine what it’s like to be in that home, be awakened by a door being crashed open and then folks with baseball bats coming in and then just beating your roommates to death,” Larizza said, “while your waiting for your turn to fight and ultimately lost that fight and wound up dead themselves.”
“It truly deserves nothig less than the death penalty for those involved,” Larizza said.
He said the verdicts would be “bittersweet” for the families of the six killed.
“I’m sure that they will be relieved and find some peace in this verdict, but their lives were forever changed on that August day in 2004,” Larizza said.
He said the death recommendations and the death penalty, if it is ultimately applied, would not change the past.
“It will never change the void in their lives,” Larizza said.
The jury on Wednesday recommended Victorino get death for Roman’s murder by a vote of 10-2; for Belanger’s murder by a vote of 10-2; for Gleason’s murder by a vote of 9-3 and for Gonzalez’s murder by a vote of 9-3.
The jurors recommended Hunter get death by a vote of 11-1 for Nathan’s murder; for Vega’s murder by a vote of 8-4; for Gleason’s murder by a vote of 11-1; for Gonzalez’s murder by a vote of 9-3.
At least eight of the 12 jurors had to recommend death for the judge to have that option. Otherwise, the person must be sentenced to life. The judge is not required to follow a jury’s death recommendation but must give it great weight.
Victorino, who was angered because some of his property, including an Xbox gaming system, had been taken from another house where he had been squatting, was the ringleader in the attack, investigators said.
The four armed themselves with metal bats and on Aug. 6, 2004, went up to the house on Telford Lane where the six young people lived. Victorino and his group beat them with the metal bats, leaving shattered skulls, broken bodies and bloodied walls.
Attorneys argue for life or death in Xbox murder resentencing
Prosecutors Trigones and Urbanak called for Victorino and Hunter to be sentenced to death, listing a number of aggravating circumstances they said justified their execution. Each was convicted of six counts of first-degree murder.
Victorino was free on bond for a parole violation when he committed the murders. He had already been convicted of brutally beating another man with a cane several years earlier.
Defense attorneys for Victorino, Beth Sammons and Tim Pribisco presented mitigating circumstances including that Victorino suffered sexual abuse as a child and suffered from a mental health illness and attempted suicide as a child.
Defense attorneys for Hunter, Garry Wood and Antonio Tomas, told jurors about mitigating circumstances, claiming Hunter was under the domination of Victorino. They said Hunter’s family had a history of mental illness. And Hunter’s twin brother died when he was about 5 months old and Hunter continued having conversations with his dead brother.
Jury recommendations in 2006 Xbox murder trial
In 2006, jurors recommended death for Victorino by a vote of 10-2 for Belanger’s murder; 10-2 for Ayo-Roman’s; 9-3 for Gonzalez’s; and 7-5 for Gleason’s. They recommended life for the murders of Nathan and Vega.
Jurors recommended Hunter get a death sentence for Gleason’s murder by a vote of 10-2; for Gonzalez’s murder by a vote of 9-3; for Nathan’s murder by a vote of 10-2; and for Vega’s murder by 9-3. Jurors recommended life sentences for Belanger’s and Ayo-Roman’s murders.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Jury recommends death sentences for 2 killers in Deltona Xbox murders
Reporting by Frank Fernandez, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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